On intelligence

Abstract

As uncertainty increases, organisations often find themselves rich in expertise yet unable to respond coherently to change. This essay explores how intelligence is still commonly treated as an individual capability, why that assumption strains under uncertainty, and what becomes visible when intelligence is understood as an organisational property rather than a personal one.

When intelligence feels insufficient

Organisations today are rarely short of intelligence in the conventional sense. They employ capable leaders, hire specialists, invest in data and surround decision-makers with analysis. Yet despite this, many organisations struggle to interpret what is happening around them or to respond coherently as conditions shift.

This tension is often experienced as overload rather than absence. Information accumulates faster than it can be integrated. Decisions feel riskier even when supported by more data. Confidence fluctuates between over-assertion and hesitation. What appears to be a problem of capability increasingly feels like a problem of coordination.

As uncertainty rises, the limits of familiar models of intelligence begin to show.

The inherited assumption about intelligence

Most organisations still operate on an implicit assumption that intelligence resides in individuals.

In this established model, insight is concentrated in leaders, experts, or specialist functions. Sense-making happens at the top or centre. Information flows upward, is interpreted by those with authority and is then translated into decisions that cascade back down the organisation. This logic has deep roots in industrial management.

Under conditions of relative stability, this assumption worked well. Problems could be defined clearly, analysed with available information and resolved through experience and judgement. Intelligence could be exercised on behalf of the organisation because the environment moved slowly enough for interpretation to keep pace.

This is not a flawed model. It is a historically successful one.

The difficulty is that it presumes conditions that are no longer reliable.

Why individual-centric intelligence strains under uncertainty

As uncertainty increases, the environment organisations face becomes less legible to the leadership.

Signals emerge unevenly and locally. Weak indicators appear before they are recognised as meaningful. Consequences emerging from a variety of macroenvironmental forces, including technology, geopolitics, weather and societal shifts, unfold at different speeds. No single vantage point or lens offers a complete picture.

In traditional organisations, environmental insights typically occur at the organisation’s edge, ie where the organisation meets the market. Often there is no mechanism to share these insights with the wider organisation or to infer how a multitude of differing weak signals may signify something seismic.

When intelligence is treated as something individuals at the top must possess or synthesise, strain accumulates. Information is filtered to preserve coherence. Ambiguity is escalated rather than resolved. Decisions slow as uncertainty is concentrated rather than shared.

The problem is not that leaders or experts are insufficiently intelligent. It is that no individual, however capable, can reliably integrate fast-moving, ambiguous signals on behalf of the whole organisation.

From intelligence as capability to intelligence as property

At this point, the question shifts.

Rather than asking who is intelligent, it becomes necessary to ask how intelligence is organised.

Seen this way, intelligence is not merely a personal attribute or leadership quality. It is a property that emerges from how an organisation senses its environment, interprets what it encounters and coordinates action. It is shaped by structure, authority, information flows, and the boundaries within which decisions are made.

An organisation can contain highly intelligent people and still behave unintelligently. Conversely, it can enable relatively ordinary individual judgement to combine into a coherent collective response.

What matters is not the brilliance of individuals, but the conditions under which their insight is surfaced, synthesised and acted upon. The same is true when it comes to capturing individual creativity and refining it into coherent action.

This reframing does not diminish leadership. It relocates intelligence from individuals alone to the system they operate within.

What becomes visible inside organisations

When intelligence remains individual-centric under conditions of uncertainty, certain patterns begin to appear.

Decisions concentrate upward as risk aversion grows. Leaders are expected to provide clarity even when clarity is unavailable. Confidence becomes performative, standing in for understanding. Dissent is softened to avoid confusion. Field level insight is delayed or diluted as it travels up the organogram.

At the same time, cognitive load increases across the organisation. Individuals are asked to manage ambiguity without corresponding shifts in authority or structure. Autonomy erodes as alignment is prioritised over interpretation. Capability is consumed by coordination rather than sense-making. For all intents and purposes this represents a gradual leakage of cognitive capacity.

These effects are often described as leadership gaps, cultural issues, or engagement problems. In reality, they reflect an organisational model that constrains how intelligence can operate under uncertainty. Traditional organisational design rarely accounted for how to capitalise on the natural cognition of its people, even as many organisations now race to capitalise on artificial cognition.

The organisation is not short of intelligence. It is simply unable to use what it has.

The temptation to substitute intelligence with technology

As these strains become visible, it is tempting to look for substitutes.

Technology, particularly data and AI, is often positioned as a way to restore clarity. More information promises better decisions. Automation promises speed. Pattern recognition promises insight at scale.

These tools can be powerful. But they do not resolve the underlying issue.

Technology amplifies the intelligence model it is embedded within. When intelligence is organised centrally, tools tend to increase volume rather than understanding. They accelerate existing decision pathways without changing how interpretation occurs. In some cases, they increase confidence without increasing sense-making.

The risk is not technological. It is organisational. Intelligence cannot be added to a system that constrains how intelligence is shared and enacted.

Intelligence as an organisational question

If uncertainty is a defining condition, and if intelligence is constrained by organisational design, then intelligence itself becomes an organisational question.

It is shaped by how authority is distributed, how information moves, how disagreement is handled and how decisions connect to action. These are not technical details. They are fundamental design choices.

What this implies is not yet widely acknowledged. It challenges deeply held assumptions about leadership, expertise and control. It suggests that intelligence under uncertainty cannot be exercised solely on behalf of the organisation, it must be enacted by it.

What it would mean to design for intelligence as an organisational property, rather than an individual one, remains unresolved. What is clear is that as uncertainty rises, the limits of individual-centric intelligence become increasingly visible.